dirty hands

Work at the bike shop has become more like work that I don’t really want to do and the forty-five minute commute doesn’t help. I am still reading Berry’s The Unsettling of America. This book resonates in me as much as any book I have read lately. It is difficult for me to read, not hard to understand, more like it’s difficult to place where all of the things he writes about is manifested the life of my community and my family. What it has made me think much more about is my relationship to my community, more specifically the town I in which I live. The last two years were difficult living in a town where I never wanted people to know I lived. I still bristle a little when people come into the bike shop and announce to me that they live in New Albany as though they should be given a special helping of respect because of what they have accomplished with their life. After a month, Newark feels more like home than New Albany ever did. I have already begun to imagine what it means to take an interest in being a voice for what is best for our community. One of the first steps will be to find employment in Newark. I have been giving serious thought to going back to school to get a master’s degree in education. If I don’t do that the only other thing I would like to do is work on a farm. One way or another it is time to get my hands dirty and find a way to cultivate a more kingdom minded approach to the way I live and work. Berry continues to teach me that those two should never be separate. Work, life, recreation can all be interconnected. They can become a seamless fabric that becomes one’s way of being. To live out the kingdom, this is my path.